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About Swedish

Jennifer Wojciechowski

Jennifer is a Certified Child Passenger Safety Technician with additional training for special needs children and a Certified Parenting Counts Educator. She was an EMT, Certified American Heart Association Basic Life Support and First Aid Instructor, Certified Happiest Baby Educator, Certified Gottman Educator for Bringing Baby Home, and Certified Safe Sitter Instructor. She has also taught newborn care and preparing for postpartum classes. Previously, she was a still photography specialist in the Air National Guard for 6 years. She is also the mother of 3 boys ages 17, 12, and 7.

Blog Posts by Jennifer Wojciechowski

What does it mean when you say, “You’re so smart!”? Are you telling someone they’re intelligent, clever, cunning, observant, ‘book’ smart, ‘street’ smart, adept, sharply painful?

What does your child hear if you say it to them? “Mom loves me be because I’m smart.”

How about if you tell your child, “You’re so cute!” or “You’re funny!”?

When we offer praise to a child we’re putting emphasis on a trait that we appreciate. Of course, we think our children are smart, cute, and funny, but what we really need to say are things like, “Wow! I really like how you worked on that puzzle to figure it out.” Being specific teaches them about what it is that we like and value.

Do we really want our child to grow up thinking that we value them for being ‘cute’?

What if I were to tell you that a new study was out about something that could make your child smarter, happier and healthier. There are no negative side effects. It’s painless. It’s not injected, ingested, or inhaled.
The benefits:

Problem-solving skills are honed

Cognitive ability is increased

Physical health is improved

Social skills are developed

If you participate, bonding is improved

This new wonder drug is not a drug at all. It’s something that humans and non-humans have been doing since forever...

It’s no secret that we’re all just a little stressed these days. Between the economy and information overload on the internet, we have all sorts of things to worry about nowadays. Stress and anxiety can cause physical pain, emotional strain, and strain in your relationships. When you’re stressed, your body is secreting hormones that put you into that ‘fight or flight’ state. Long term, this state will wear on your body.

Our children pick up on our heightened state and become stressed and anxious, too.This is not a good state for children to thrive in. We learn best when we’re comfortable and relaxed, not if we’re nervous and anxious.

Parents need to learn how to regulate their own stress so that we may help our children learn the same coping techniques.

The 10th Anniversary of 9/11 happens on Sunday. There will be much coverage in the news and online. As parents, we need to be prepared for questions and we might need to censor how much exposure our children receive about the events on 9/11/01.

In order to be successful in school, our children need fuel. School lunches can be tough. We have to balance what is healthy and what our child will eat. There’s also the distraction factor. They have 20 minutes and a cafeteria or gym full of other kids who are all talking and eating. The distraction is enough to delay nutritional intake past the time when lunch is over. (To see what I'm talking about, Try to fit in a lunchtime visit to your child’s school sometime. Prearranged with your child and the office. You'll be amazed.)

So, we need something tasty and quick and easy to prepare, but nutritionally sound and easy for our kids to eat quickly.

As school starts, I am reminded of my youngest child’s first day of kindergarten.The poor child had 5 stitches in his right heel from an unfortunate accident with a metal door plate.He turned 6 years old a few days before school started and he was using a walker which gave a little extra stability than crutches.He was standing in line with the other kids outside the kindergarten room.All the parents were standing a couple of paces away from their kidsanxiously awaiting the bell to ring.

My husband and I were old hats at this as he is our third child.The backpack was full, the emergency card was signed and his lunch was packed.We did our part and now off he went.I had a moment of misty-eyed “My baby is growing up” motherly emotions, but it passed and off we went to spend the day alone, childless and enjoying it.

In the afternoon, we returned to pick him up and the teacher was standing next to him.As we walked up, excited to see him and hear how his first day of school went, the teacher stepped up to talk to us.(Now after two other boys, I took this as a sign that there was a ‘talking to’ in my youngest son’s future.)The teacher hugged me and said, “Thank you so much for preparing him for school.”She had spent the day with kids yelling, misbehaving and jumping on the furniture.My son, confined as he was because of his foot, was patient but helpful.He waited until someone was available to help him to get his lunch or binder.He waited until he was called on.We couldn’t have been prouder of our son.

I hear so much about schools needing to do better.They have tests to measure how the teachers are performing and there’s more and more scrutiny on the schools’ performance.But what about the parents?Where is the accountability for the parents to prepare their children?

We’ve created HeadStart to try and catch the kids earlier in order to better prepare the kids for school, but preparing for school starts years earlier.

Here are a few things that parents can do to prepare their children for school: